Warrior potency

[Renathras]

You people...define "simple" very differently than I do.

MCH and WAR have kind of simple rotations going on. More or less a 1-2-3 with some stuff that can be defined as either "use on CD/first come first served" or "pool but don't overcap". I THINK MCH's current optimal play is to use its non-combo GCD buttons whenever they come up, buffed with Reassemble whenever it's up, and make sure not to use Hypercharge if one is within 7-8 sec of coming off CD so it won't drift. WAR's is occasionally replace -3 with -4 to upkeep a buff that's very generous in that you can overwrite it once without it being a DPS loss (e.g. it stacks to 60 seconds so overwriting it ONCE/using it twice in a row isn't inherently harmful like, say, a WHM casting Dia two times in a row being a significant DPS loss is). MCH and WAR have their core rotation and about 4 (I think) GCDs besides that, with about 3-4 oGCDs besides those.

Contrast PLD, which as I noted not counting any oGCDs (of which it has...what, four?) you already have 8 buttons and they must be used in a pretty specific and rigid order.

GNB is rigid (and thus easy to not lose my place in it - for my structured brain/learning style, it's the easiest to play well, I think), and has 7 GCDs and 4 oGCDs. But unlike PLD, there's no real interaction between them as long as you don't wiff your Gnasing Fang combo. PLD actually has interactions between Royal and Atonement (namely that you have to do Royal to unlock 3x Atonements), Goring and...whichever their last sword thing is that also puts up its DoT, two separate buffs for physical and magical phases, respectively, and that's before getting into all the utility spells. Even its short duration CD is more complex with GNB having one they can cast on themselves or a party member, PLD has two separate ones - like WAR - but also has a third one in the form of Cover. And unlike WAR and GNB which are simple CDs, PLD's is tied to a gauge. For...reasons...?

Contrast PLD with RDM 1-4-1-5 back and forth, with 2-4/5 3-4/5 mixed in sometimes to build Mana, then 6-7-8-4/5-1-1 as its burst phase. It has an oGCD for buffing damage (itself and party), another it can use in burst for a second combo, and it has two oGCD damage attacks (one AOE and one single target, but you use both since, unlike WAR, they don't share a CD), and Corps-a-corps and Engagement/Disengagement. In theory it has Reprisal as a movement tool, but this is GENERALLY avoided. So the typical RDM rotation might be something like 1-4-1-5-2-4-1-5-3-5-6-7-8-4/5-1-1-1. That's honestly no harder than PLD.

EDIT (for space):

SMN is even easier.

PLD has a rotation that is complicated for a tank - probably the most complicated for tanks if you include the cursed opener and the weird dropping an Atonement every cycle or two at different speed breakpoints to align everything - and it's easily on par with several of the damage dealers in terms of button presses, APM, and rotational complexity.

BUT, I will grant that all of this is opinion - as I said myself, I find WAR approachable, but I find GNB is easier for me to keep up the optimal rotation since the rigidity of it makes it easy to not lose my place unlike WAR. I think what specifically makes WAR so friendly to me is that overbuffing with Storm's Eye isn't an issue (at least as long as you aren't wasting raid buff window GCDs on it), whereas on PLD, if you use Goring combo twice in a row, that's a pretty major DPS loss as your Royal/Atonement is ALSO now jacked and you may have overwritten a Goring DoT with a weaker DoT, and at the last have a DPS loss from that, even before getting to having drifted your Royal combo off-kilter. If you use Storm's Eye a second time with your buff still at 25 seconds or so......well, nothing bad happened. \o/

So to each their own, I suppose...

But yeah: PLD's rotation is on par with a DPSer's rotation, which already makes it at last medium challenge/difficulty, especially when you consider the weird optimization stuff PLD's rotation has going with it AND that you're still a tank, meaning you're doing all that while doing other tanky stuff like mitigations and positioning bosses and tank swaps, oh and since you're a PLD, you also have their slate of party support stuff in there to throw out, too.

I'll...stick with non-PLD tanks, thanks. I'm glad some people love PLD and it's there for them. I'm...probably not one of those people, so I'll stick with what my smooth brain can handle, lol